: Re: Guideline on turning points in a novel? What are some popular guides regarding structuring a novel, specifically what turning points the story should hit and approximately at what point in the

@Sarah872

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I know it's frustrating, but in general, I'm not familiar with many resources that go into a lot of detail about abstract plotting and story structure. That's because plot varies so tremendously between stories - the twists and turns of a mystery story are worlds apart from the twists and turns of heroic action, and a romance will be different than both of them. And within any one genre, you can still tell so many unique, individual stories, that it's extremely difficult to give generalizations more significant than "first things start moving, then they get really bad, then everything comes to a compelling conclusion."

What you can do is examine existing story structures - understand how some stories work, so you can do similar things with your own work. That's not "what points the story should hit and when" - but you can find some tried-and-true examples of structures that work. Just as an example, we recently discussed the recurring structure of House episodes.

Two resources on story structuring that I can recommend:

Plot, by Ansen Dibell, of Writers' Digest "Elements of Fiction Writing" series. Dibell discusses some great structural tools, including set-piece scenes and mirroring.
Orson Scott Card's Character and Viewpoint and his How To Write Science Fiction and Fantasy both describe his "MICE Quotient," which is a simple categorization of plots and stories by their central focus (Milieu, Idea, Character, Event); this division makes clear how a different focus leads to a very different plot, structure and story - and can help you fit your story structure to its primary focus.

Hope these are helpful. :)

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